Various techniques are known for providing on-line access of interactive media over the Internet.
The following U.S. Patents have been found in a U.S. Patent Search and are believed to be generally relevant to the field of the invention:
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When using, various media such as video, audio, text and images, a user generally retrieves the media from a storage device or "server" connected via a network to many client computers. The server downloads the media to the network and transmits it to the client computer at the user's request.
There are two basic limitations involved in such data retrieval: delay between the time that a user requests the data and the time when the server downloads it to the network, and bandwidth limitations on data throughput and rate of data transmission.
One example of such a server-client network is a network connecting Internet servers and users' personal computers. Such networks are installed in order to facilitate convenient data transmission between users and data distribution from the server to the users' computers.
Known network applications involve streaming data from a server to a client computer (hereinafter also referred to as "client"). "Streaming" refers to serial or parallel transmission of digital data between two computers, by transmitting sequences of bit packets. For example, installation executables on a network server stream files to a client computer performing the installation. Servers with large amounts of memory are used to archive digital movies, which are streamed to a client computer for viewing upon demand. Digital video is broadcast from cable stations to subscribers using streaming. Internet browsers, such as Netscape and Microsoft Explorer, are used to stream data from a server on the web to a client.
Internet web sites can contain enormous databases, such as phone directories for all of the cities in the U.S., photographs from art galleries and museums around the world, voluminous encyclopedias, and even copies of all patents ever issued by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Users of the Internet can search these databases and then request the server to download specific information. This request initiates a streaming event.